Visitor spend data under review
Statistics New Zealand will review the way overseas visitor spending figures are gathered after complaints about the accuracy of data.
Earlier this month Tourism Industry Aotearoa and about 10 industry leaders wrote to Statistics NZ, Treasury and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) expressing concerns about the volatility and reliability of figures, which showed visitor spend dropping when arrivals were rising.
A Statistics NZ report released to Stuff under the Official Information Act criticises aspects of the international visitor survey (IVS) conducted by MBIE to calculate tourism spending.
The Statistics NZ evaluation of recent movements in the IVS said it had both overstated and understated spending when compared with credit card data and other indicators.
It noted there had been a sizeable spend increase over winter in 2015-16 at a time of low visitor arrivals.
The IVS is supposed to question about 9900 international visitors to New Zealand, but the Statistics NZ report said MBIE had met the full quota only once since taking over the survey in 2013.
The monthly response rate averaged more than 80 per cent when interviews were carried out face to face, but had dropped to between 26 per cent and 35 per cent online and reasons for this had not been forthcoming from the company contracted to do the survey.
The 52-page report pointed out that despite a significant increase in departures from Queenstown Airport, the number of visitors surveyed from there had halved.
It also questioned whether estimates for some quarters were affected by the inclusion of ‘‘outliers’’ – such as very high-spending individuals – that could skew the figures.
The final section was largely redacted from the copy released to Stuff on the grounds that the opinions expressed were those of the author and had not been approved by senior staff.
However, it said very few countries used online surveys to gather visitor spending data, and Australia continued to use face-to-face interviews.
Responding via email MBIE’s director of evidence, monitoring and governance Eileen Basher said a 2015 Statistics NZ review of the IVS had confirmed it was the best available source of spend data.
The more recent evaluation was ‘‘very much preliminary work’’ which had not been peer reviewed, and did not provide sufficient evidence to conclude there were any issues with the survey.
‘‘However, acknowledging some concerns raised by industry, MBIE has now asked Statistics NZ to conduct another review of the IVS to ensure confidence in the survey.’’
Tourism Industry Aotearoa boss Chris Roberts said they had been told the review would begin early next year.